Guilt
by PrincessFerdinand
Summary: Because no person is entirely evil, even Voldemort. Short little oneshot. Canon.


_"Avada Kedavra."_

He watched the body fall with satisfaction.

Another life dead. Another body upon the floor. Another terrified face, eyes still open.

Another murder.

He had grown used to it. He rarely thought of the consequences of death anymore. He rarely thought of the family he was tearing apart.

But suddenly - it came on so quickly he had no time to react before it was smothering him - he thought of it and it devastated him.

Of course, this time there would be no family left to mourn these three lives. They were all dead already. Some by his doing, some not. But there would be friends. There would b Dumbledore, the fool. There would be Pettigrew. There would be the entire population of Godric's Hollow, the countless friends the budding young family had made. They would all cry when they heard the news.

Snape. Snape would cry. Snape, who had begged him to spare the life of the woman he had just killed.

He was disgusted by what he had done. He _regretted _it.

Faces flashed before his mind, imprinting themselves onto his brain. The faces of those whom he had murdered. Terrified faces, pleading faces, faces with tears streaming down them. And the stoic faces, who hadn't shown fear even at the last moment. They were all dead. He had killed them all.

He was sick of killing. He had uttered that curse so many times. Muttered it under his breath, screamed it for all the world to hear. And he had never yet felt the repercussions of all those murders until now.

guilt came crashing down upon his shoulders like a waterfall. His knees buckled; he fell to the ground. Pain exploded between his eyes and he wondered if he was somehow sharing the pain of those he had left behind.

He could have had the world. How many people had told him that? He saw himself, in his mind's eye, married, with a child playing on the floor by his feet while he talked and laughed with a beautiful, faceless wife...

But no. He had probably killed the woman who could have been his wife, in one of the many thousands of nameless individuals whose faces had been forgotten by him just seconds after their bodies fell to the floor. He had ruined any chance of living a normal life the very first day that he muttered those fatal words.

He had never been sorry for all he had done before now. He wanted power. This was the only way to get it - eradicate all those who threatened him. Each person he killed was one less who could gather forces and destroy him.

But all those people...The price was too great. Too great for a single man's dreams.

He had killed, so many times. he couldn't get this out of his head. Some in the heat of temper, some in cold-blooded, cool-headed fits of fancy. Some had deserved it, most had not. Some had been for his own personal gain, so he could be ever nearer to the immortality he craved. But he had done them all in, mercilessly slaughtered them all.

He wondered if this is what feeling total remorse is like. If right now all those Horcruxes he has already created are destroying themselves, if those bits of soul are coming back to him. All that he has worked for destroyed in one moment of weakness...

And then it all comes back to him. Why he had killed so many. Why he would kill however many more to get what he wanted. Why it mattered, why deserved what he was working toward. Why he would pay any price, leap any boundary to become the most powerful person in the world, in the history of the world. Why he would ensure that immortality came with that.

He looks up, and his tortured, anguished eyes lock upon the infant he was about to kill.

And he remembers how this child who can't even speak could stop him if given the chance.

He looked into the innocent eyes of the child, helpless and confused. The baby didn't know the power he wielded. He didn't know what he could do.

And just as quickly as the waterfall of guilt had come, it had evaporated. Voldemort was back. He was paranoid, he was ruthless, and he was thirsting for the kill he knew was coming. If this child, this _baby_, could defeat him, who knew where other pitfalls could lie? In that middle-aged, Muggle-loving witch who had run that crowded little shop who just the other day had met her demise? In that wizened, bent-over wizard who had simply looked at him the wrong way? as quickly as he was devastated by what he had done, it was justified again.

He pointed his wand at the baby and spoke the words, and he did not regret what he was about to do.

"_Avada Kedavra."_

**My first HP fic! Please review. I hope I got that right.**


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